We're Out - Whinge Here

[dww]

First time ever I've seriously questioned whether I think Rafa should continue to be our manager

What in real terms has changed from a few weeks ago?

We are out of the CL but it was out of our hand then and so Rafa really had little influence on how that panned out. I think people are (understandably) reacting emotionally to how that has panned out but I don't see how logically it would affect your view.

[Rich]

What in real terms has changed from a few weeks ago?

We are out of the CL but it was out of our hand then and so Rafa really had little influence on how that panned out. I think people are (understandably) reacting emotionally to how that has panned out but I don't see how logically it would affect your view.

I guess it was down to the performance last night. It was horrible to watch, really awful.

Debrecen are a very poor team, perhaps lower Championship level and we laboured against them and required a spadeful of luck to actually beat them.

Virtually no one came out of that performance with credit - perhaps Ngog and Reina you could rightly say performed well - and the worrying thing is that we aren't playing like a team, its fractured.

Finally the utterly bizarre decision to send Aquilani on for a full 60 seconds was staggering. There was NO justification in it as far as I can tell.

[Guest]

What in real terms has changed from a few weeks ago?

We are out of the CL but it was out of our hand then and so Rafa really had little influence on how that panned out. I think people are (understandably) reacting emotionally to how that has panned out but I don't see how logically it would affect your view.

Try to define 'logical' in the same sentence as 'fans'. It doesn't fit.

[dww]

I guess it was down to the performance last night. It was horrible to watch, really awful.

Debrecen are a very poor team, perhaps lower Championship level and we laboured against them and required a spadeful of luck to actually beat them.

Virtually no one came out of that performance with credit - perhaps Ngog and Reina you could rightly say performed well - and the worrying thing is that we aren't playing like a team, its fractured.

Finally the utterly bizarre decision to send Aquilani on for a full 60 seconds was staggering. There was NO justification in it as far as I can tell.

I can see that but then if you look at say FA cup or League cup matches you often get poor performances on poor pitches in crap conditions and what matters is the result. Last night in many ways we didn't even have that motivation - certainly after we got the goal - as we were relying on others.

I can see why people would hope that we would look great but I honestly didn't really expect anything other than some form of just enough. It would be an immensely difficult game for most players to get really motivated for and when you are playing badly, as we are, you need something to kick you out of the funk.

I agree the Aquilani decision was a bit odd but to me forming an opinion in which that looms large is even more baffling. All managers seem to have an odd obsession with this sort of last second substitution as if not using up all three will mean that they will get one taken away for the next match. If people weren't obsessively looking for signs of the coming footballing apocalypse then it would just barely be worth commenting on.

[Harv]

Im so disenchanted with football at the moment its not even funny.

[Rix007]

Rafa out

[gentingfrmhell]

Rafa out

i cant take this drama anymore...

[javier_monsterano]

Rafa out?

[Kenneth]

Tits out!

[vonk]

It's not solely the disappointment of going out of the Champions League in the group stage (although how we couldn't get out of a group with the mighty Fiorentina and Lyon is beyond me). It's the diastrous form, the lack of a squad, the treatment of some players, the absence of a trophy for quite a while, the persistence with substandard players, the wholesale buying and selling of players in the apparent hope that one will work out, the playing style, the lack of technical ability, the paucity of decent youth getting into the team (Insua is an exception but the guy is clearly nowhere near ready) that bothers me really. Where is the leadership? The PL wasn't "nearly the strongest in it's history" last year - Arsenal barely got going, Chelsea only started to get going in about Feb owing to a "great" manager not working out. Rubbish. We blew it ourselves. This is all underachievement in my eyes. If you want to believe otherwise that's up to you.

At this point for me it's not even about the trophies. It's about the football we are watching from 11 men in red shirts every week. If you ask the majority of other fans they would say we play **** football. And yes we played nice stuff last year for half a season when the shackles were off. But that has not been the norm for 5 years. We have players who take 2 and 3 touches to control the ball. We have one defender (agger) with decent distribution. We play with two defensive midfielders who barely make it into the opponents penalty area and never score. When teams take our only two regular scorers out of the game we have no plan B. It's complete dross. We are playing percentages football most of the time. We can't defend set pieces, we can't work our own set-pieces. Most of the time we look completely disorganised. Sunderland was a perfect example. It's a shame that this game was all about that beachball, because all I recall was that we were dire and clueless. There are so many things wrong with the football itself that it would be nice to concentrate on that. Never mind who is playing or who we should buy. That's a sideshow. It's what is happening on the pitch that is depressing.

[cream]

Schools out

[The Erectile Banana]

Because if it was that easy and judging by the quality list of the self appointed managers, who seem to know more than the one currently in charge, then we're in a safe state of affairs when Rafa goes.

Aquilani had only 4 run outs in the first team before, his longest being in a 10 minute cameo in the League cup against Arsenal. And he's been out since April 2009! We cannot expect him to be our saviour straight away, and Rafa is trying to protect him in that sense IMO.

He'll be used when a modicum of stability is achieved on the playing side, meaning as Gerrard gets closer to match fitness + other players coming back in. That will allow him to thrive in a more stable and better environment.

Imagine him being totally pants and his confidence being dented due to his poor performances? It's better to 'surround him' with our strongest team.

I never said I expected him to be our saviour and I understand that Rafa is trying to ease him back in slowly. My point is a very simple one: If he has been fit enough to sit on the bench for the last month then he should be fit enough to come on for twenty/thirty minutes in any given match and make a contribution regardless of circumstances.

[cream]

I never said I expected him to be our saviour and I understand that Rafa is trying to ease him back in slowly. My point is a very simple one: If he has been fit enough to sit on the bench for the last month then he should be fit enough to come on for twenty/thirty minutes in any given match and make a contribution regardless of circumstances.

Are you Andy Gray ?

[The Erectile Banana]

Are you Andy Gray ?

No. Why do you ask?

[Rich]

I never said I expected him to be our saviour and I understand that Rafa is trying to ease him back in slowly. My point is a very simple one: If he has been fit enough to sit on the bench for the last month then he should be fit enough to come on for twenty/thirty minutes in any given match and make a contribution regardless of circumstances.

We may disagree over The Arcade Fire and Genesis but here we agree.

I mean c'mon, someone seriously unfit could run around for 5 minutes - Aquilani could have been given 15/20 minutes easily. Instead we're left with this bemusing situation of no craft in the middle of the pitch and him coming on with 60 seconds of the game remaining.